A restless hitchhiker with extra-large thumbs, Sissy Hackshaw (Uma Thurman), visits her friend's beauty ranch. A group of raunchy lesbian cowgirls have taken over the Rubber Rose Ranch from its manager (Angie Dickinson). Sissy soon resumes her hitchhiking, but returns to the ranch just as the police step in. They have been staking out the ranch because a flock of whooping cranes have been drugged, keeping them from migrating. Though billed as a comedy, this muddled, poorly acted film is a waste of your time and money.

Questionable messages include references to worship of the occult, Eastern religions and New Age philosophy. Drugs, especially marijuana and peyote, are everywhere. Even the whooping cranes are fed peyote. Repeated scenes of lesbian activity and close-ups of female sexual self-gratification are shown. This illustrates how Hollywood is resorting to pornography to attract patrons. Sissy engages in sex with an artist once, though there is no nudity. Other scenes, however show breast nudity and female rear nudity in a group scene. Many crude discussions center around intercourse and the female anatomy and obscenities abound. A gratuitous bloody scene features an operation on Sissy's over-sized thumb and the police kill some of the ranch residents. COWGIRLS is pure trash.